pollution

After more than 50 years of pulp-mill pollution, regulators have proposed restoring North Carolina’s Roanoke River, including contaminated floodplain habitat damaged by toxic discharges

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After more than 50 years of pulp-mill pollution, regulators have proposed restoring North Carolina's Roanoke River, including contaminated floodplain habitat damaged by toxic discharges

The Plymouth Mill began operating in 1937 as a wood and paper products manufacturing facility. Over subsequent decades, industrial operations at the site resulted in hazardous substances being released into groundwater, soil, Welch Creek and the Roanoke River (Image Credit: Domtar) For more than half a century, pollution from a pulp and paper mill has … Read more

Shailene Woodley joined scientists in the Sargasso Sea to collect microplastics; why this remote Atlantic ecosystem became a real-world pollution laboratory

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Shailene Woodley joined scientists in the Sargasso Sea to collect microplastics; why this remote Atlantic ecosystem became a real-world pollution laboratory

PC: TIME/National Geographic Far from the beaches and busy coastlines where plastic pollution is easiest to see, scientists found evidence of a much less visible problem in the Sargasso Sea. During a 2019 Greenpeace expedition, actress Shailene Woodley joined researchers collecting samples from the remote North Atlantic ecosystem, where floating Sargassum provides habitat for marine … Read more

West Dallas had too few air-quality monitors to track pollution across large areas; a Plano teen built an AI model to estimate neighborhood air quality, later reaching 60 schools and training 300 youth ambassadors

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West Dallas had too few air-quality monitors to track pollution across large areas; a Plano teen built an AI model to estimate neighborhood air quality, later reaching 60 schools and training 300 youth ambassadors

Technology is only one part of Tan’s approach. Shared Skies created a 50-page environmental justice guide in English and Spanish and distributed it to more than 60 low-income schools, reaching approximately 30,000 students. At 17, Nathan Tan has already taken on a problem that can be difficult even for adults to see, let alone solve: … Read more

Scientists hung clean moss beside three Russian highways, and the plants began collecting metals linked to traffic pollution

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Scientists hung clean moss beside three Russian highways, and the plants began collecting metals linked to traffic pollution

Researchers in Russia hung bags of moss beside three busy highways to see how much traffic pollution the plants would soak up. Published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, the study exposed moss collected from a clean background site to roadside air along the Leningradskoye, Yaroslavskoye, and Dmitrovkoye highways in central Russia. After analysing the … Read more

Meet Kelly Liu: The 16-year-old San Jose student who used AI to map dirty air, put pollution sensors in underserved schools and helped push a countywide policy change

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Meet Kelly Liu: The 16-year-old San Jose student who used AI to map dirty air, put pollution sensors in underserved schools and helped push a countywide policy change

Kelly LiuPhoto credit: www.actionfornature.org When Kelly Liu looked at air pollution data around San Jose, she noticed something important was missing. Official monitoring stations could show broad regional trends, but they did not always reveal what students were breathing beside busy roads, industrial areas or older school buildings. The 16-year-old student decided to fill that … Read more

Michigan’s AQI hit 616 after Ontario wildfire smoke crossed into the US; scientists warn a warming climate could make such pollution more common

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Michigan’s AQI hit 616 after Ontario wildfire smoke crossed into the US; scientists warn a warming climate could make such pollution more common

Michigan’s AQI hit 616 after Ontario wildfire smoke crossed into the US (Image: AI Generated) Smoke from Canadian wildfires can travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres, turning a distant fire into a serious air-quality emergency. That danger was starkly illustrated when wildfire smoke from Ontario moved into the United States and contributed to exceptionally … Read more

Meet Archishman Dey, the Ohio eighth-grader who tested an air fryer, candle, humidifier, gas and incense; incense produced the most fine-particle pollution

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Meet Archishman Dey, the Ohio eighth-grader who tested an air fryer, candle, humidifier, gas and incense; incense produced the most fine-particle pollution

Ohio eighth-grader Archishman Dey’s experiment reveals incense produced the highest PM2.5 pollution among five household sources. (Photo: Society for Science) An eighth-grader from Solon, Ohio, is drawing attention to an often-overlooked source of air pollution – the air inside our homes. Archishman Dey, a student at Solon Middle School, conducted a science project examining how … Read more